


Break Every Yoke

by Lady_Ganesh



Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Community: wk-reverse-fest, Gen, Missing Scene, Pre-Slash, reverse challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 20:03:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nagi is aimless, until he gets an unexpected offer from a pretty girl. Written for the Weiss Kreuz Reverse-a-Thon prompt <em>Nagi-centric Nagi/Mamoru - dramatic precious timeline - what was Nagi thinking when Saijou brought him to the castle?</em> I took a few liberties with it.</p><p>Thanks to <a href="http://lindentreeisle.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://lindentreeisle.livejournal.com/"></a><b>lindentreeisle</b> for betaing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break Every Yoke

**Author's Note:**

> Contains some oblique references to life at Rosenkreuz and Uno and Sano's canon backstory.

Nagi fucking hated this country. Nothing good ever happened in Japan. When he was a kid, they threw rocks at him, and then Crawford promised to take him to a magical place where he could get power, as much power as he'd ever wished for. He got power, all right, and almost lost his sanity while he was there. And then he'd been dragged back again to this fucking place, so he could watch his girlfriend die, get crushed by a castle, and swallow a stomach's worth of seawater.

"Where am I supposed to go?" he'd asked.

"I don't know," Crawford said. "But I saw you in Japan. You're going."

So here he was. Going somewhere. Doing something that might, theoretically, help get them finally free of Rosenkreuz. He was clueless, and angry, and bored out of his mind.

Nagi grabbed a coffee from the vending machine and took a moment to hate everything and everyone.

Then he felt the tingle of familiarity at the back of his throat. Eszett.

That cured the boredom. Nagi opened the coffee and took a long drink, reaching out to see what was around him. Vending machine. Three people talking to his left, a woman to his right. A man behind him.

_There._

His power was strong enough now that he could sense the contours of things, and this man had a small metal charm on the old-fashioned pocketwatch he carried. Nagi knew the shape from memory. Not just Eszett; Rosenkreuz.

The key was to stay calm. Keep his heartbeat steady. A telepath probably would've sensed him by now; even silence is a sound, of sorts.

He walked down the street and paused in front of a store, pretending to look in the windows. The Rosenkreuz agent scanned the street; was he looking for someone? He turned his head toward Nagi.

No hesitation. Hesitation got you killed.

He focused on the man's throat and put all his attention there. Tightness, contraction. _Now._

He turned away from the vending machine and walked calmly toward his hotel.

The voices behind him faded as he moved. "Sir?"

"He's fallen--"

"He needs an ambulance, he's turning blue!"

 

The girl was very pretty. Older than Nagi, like she should be in university rather than whatever cloak and dagger bullshit she was up to. She was wearing a black-and-white striped suit and had dark hair in a ponytail that reached down to her waist. She wanted him for some reason, but she didn't want him dead. That was something.

She'd sat across from him at the cafe, sliding into the chair like they were old friends. "Naoe-san," she said, smiling with her mouth while her eyes kept watch. "I'd like to speak with you for a moment."

"Fascinating," Nagi said, and went back to his book.

A few moments later a photograph slid over the edge of the pages.

The man he'd killed in Ota.

"It'll just take a second of your time," she said.

Nagi snapped the book closed over the photograph.

"We were following that individual," she said.

There didn't seem to be anything to say to that, so he waited for her to continue.

She did. "In all honesty, you saved us some difficulty."

 _I bet I did,_ he thought darkly.

"We'd like to offer you a position."

He shot her a suspicious look over the top of the book. "Doing what?"

Her smile was honest and bright. "Cleaning."

 

 

He met Takatori Mamoru in an office at Tsukiyono Castle four months later; seeing his face wasn't a shock, but there was still something odd about seeing the tiniest member of Weiss in a three-piece suit, his hair a strange, in-between shade of blond. There were bags under his eyes, and his skin was sallow.

"You look like shit," Nagi said.

If Mamoru was surprised to see him, he didn't show it. "Grandfather says I'll be taken more seriously if I let my hair be its normal shade."

That wasn't really what Nagi was talking about, but he suspected Mamoru knew that. He wouldn't still be alive if he wasn't damn good at dissembling.

Mamoru pushed a dossier over to him. "My grandfather's assistants are dead, so you're stuck with me."

Nagi took the dossier and flipped it open. The photo wasn't familiar, but the list of contacts the man had made in the last six months certainly fit the bill. Even if he wasn't a member of Eszett, he knew enough about them to draw attention.

"We need to know who he really is. Bring back the information. If he's Rosenkreuz, you're authorized to kill him."

Nagi nodded. Not that he'd wait for any authorization if the man in the photo was working for what was left of Eszett. "My contact--"

"Her name was Sano," Mamoru said, his voice dull.

"She never said her name."

Mamoru wasn't looking at him. "She's dead. And her twin." The words came out in a burst, undisciplined, angry.

"What happened?"

Mamoru's anger flared again. "They sacrificed themselves to save Grandfather. This man -- he wanted Grandfather dead. Because he thought he could get a petty little bit of power." He shook his head.

Mamoru was exhausted; he'd regret saying all of this later. But for now, Nagi just listened.

"They were slaves. Grandfather bought them. I guess he thought he was saving them. Maybe he was. I don't know." He shook his head. "They told me...." He shook his head. "They would do anything he asked of them."

Nagi caught the undercurrent. "Did you--?"

He looked horrified. "No."

"Twins," Nagi said. If they'd both looked like Sano....

"They were _slaves,"_ Mamoru said, with the force of his disgust behind it, and Nagi felt something twist in his chest.

Herr Falk had once plucked a Bible verse out of Nagi's head: _Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, so keep and observe these laws._ "You know what that means?" he’d asked Nagi.

Years of Bible study overrode his common sense. "It means that we should trust in God, who delivered us--"

"You know that's shit," Herr Falk snapped, the sharpness in his tone as clear and brutal as a hand striking Nagi's face. "But there is truth in it, little Naoe. There are slaves, and there are masters. The slaves keep the laws. Masters make their own. You are part of Eszett now. You'll take what you want when you want it, and apologize to no one."

Takatori Mamoru had, for whatever reason, chosen not to be a master.

Nagi took the dossier. "I'll look into it," he said. "I'll have a report by Monday."

He could feel Mamoru's eyes on his back as he walked out of the office.

 

 

Another day, another dossier. Nagi noticed Mamoru had a photo of Weiss near his desk. He chose not to comment.

He opened the folder. Herr Rheault.

"You recognize him," Mamoru said.

Nagi nodded.

"Can you do this job?"

"Of course," Nagi said sharply, and snapped the folder closed. "Who else do you have to do it?"

Mamoru's eyes flashed. "We're not completely without resources."

"You can't do this," Nagi said. "Your resources aren't enough." His heart was pounding. He set his jaw and ignored it. "It's got to be me. Unless you have a pyrokinetic you've been hiding. That might be useful."

"No," Mamoru conceded. "But--"

Nagi shook his head. "He was a trainer. If I'm lucky, he won't recognize me until it's too late. If I brought a team in, he'd realize right away."

"I can get you more information, at least," Mamoru said.

Nagi opened the folder again and flipped through its contents. "No," he said; the man's daily schedule and habits were there, along with a long list of recent contacts. "This should be enough. He doesn't have empathy or telepathy; as long as I have the element of surprise--"

"All right," Mamoru said.

Nagi took a few more minutes with the file to be sure, then closed it again. He got up from the desk and walked to the door. "Takatori-san?"

Mamoru looked up from his laptop. "Hn?"

"After the castle. When...when we died. Why did you....?"

Mamoru's eyes went somewhere else for a moment. "Yohji-kun told us--" He shook his head. "Does it matter?"

 _I don't know,_ Nagi thought. He didn't answer.

"He told us you and--" Mamoru took a breath. "He said you were in love. And...we should make sure you were together. So we did."

"You know she's alive?"

Mamoru's shocked face said he didn't.

"She doesn't remember me. She doesn't remember any of it." Nagi swallowed. "I guess that's better."

He got the hell out before he could say anything else stupid.

 

"Why are you doing this?" Mamoru asked, as Nagi picked up the dossier. He looked much better than he had the first time Nagi met 'Takatori Mamoru,' though his eyes were still shaded.

Nagi shrugged. "Pay's decent. I'm good at it."

That didn't really satisfy Mamoru, but he was quiet while Nagi looked over the file.

"He was Eszett," Nagi said. "I don't know what he did. He may be...." He tapped the photo. "I don't know how much choice he had."

"We just want the information," Mamoru said.

Nagi raised his eyebrows. "And if he's hiding out, minding his own business?"

Mamoru sighed. "I don't know."

"Some of the students at Rosenkreuz were under ten," Nagi said.

They looked at each other over Mamoru's desk. Nagi could hear the whir of Mamoru's laptop.

"Of course," Mamoru said, "your record is excellent. If someone gets spooked and leaves the country ahead of your work--"

"I understand," Nagi said, and felt a tightness he hadn't realized was there leaving his chest.

 

"You don't have to do this," Nagi said.

Alison Lee just shook her head and pushed harder against his resistance. What the hell was her plan? Why did she think this was going to get her anywhere? Setting off a bomb in the middle of a political dinner was B-grade terrorism at best; that she'd persuaded some other idiot to do the work for her didn't make it any more impressive.

"They're gone," Nagi said.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "This is for me." _You want to go away. You want to leave me alone._

Schuldig could do better than that in his sleep, but Nagi grunted with effort, trying to exaggerate the challenge she presented.

"Tell me why," Nagi said.

 _Go away, go away, go away._ There was nothing there, just a solid, implacable wall. Maybe she didn't even know why she was doing it. Maybe she'd just needed something to do.

He snapped her neck, and she crumbled to the floor like a doll.

He sent Mamoru a message about the bomb. He didn't want to deal with it, and they had four hours.

Mamoru called him later, in defiance of all protocol. "You saved my life," he said.

Nagi was on the bed. He stared up at the ceiling. "Probably."

"It's not in your job description. Saving me."

"Free bonus. You only get one a year, so don't expect one next month."

Mamoru's chuckle sounded warm.

"Look, if it's more work, I--"

"No," he said. "I just wanted to thank you, I guess."

He closed his eyes. It would be easier doing this work if it ever ended. If people thought he could do more than snap necks. If Mamoru wasn't so damn pretty.

"Look," Mamoru said. "Is this -- is this really what you want? Doing this?"

Nagi shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "Why are you asking this after I saved your life?"

"I don't know," he said. "Because I don't want you to.... It doesn't matter. I just don't want you to feel trapped, I guess."

Nagi wanted to laugh. This was the least trapped he'd ever been in his life. "You could just say thank you," he said.

"All right," Mamoru said. "Thank you, Nagi-kun."

 _You've never called me by name before,_ Nagi thought. "You're welcome," he said. "Try not to get killed before December 31."

"I promise," he said.

"Good," he said. He should have hung up.

Instead, he sat up on the bed and asked, "So how many people did the bomb scare piss off?"


End file.
